Portrait of Zhu Xi (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2023.583.27)

A hanging scroll titled "Portrait of Zhu Xi," painted in ink and color on silk by the Japanese artist Tani Buncho in 1796. Zhu Xi, the twelfth century Chinese philosopher whose synthesis of Confucian classics became the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy taught across China, Korea and Japan for centuries, is shown here in the formal scholar's portrait convention still current in Japan six hundred years after his death. Held today by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Asian Art department, under accession 2023.583.27.